Skids has one of those powers that sounds incredibly convenient until you start thinking about living with it all the time. Sally Blevins is surrounded by a frictionless force f…

Skids has one of those powers that sounds incredibly convenient until you start thinking about living with it all the time. Sally Blevins is surrounded by a frictionless force field. Things slide off her, grabbing her becomes difficult, and she can use that same lack of friction to move across surfaces. But early on, she can’t simply decide she’s finished using it and switch it off. The thing protecting her also gets between her and ordinary contact with the world. Even handling something small can become a problem. That’s a much more personal limitation than running out of energy halfway through a fight. Her background makes it worse. Sally comes from an abusive home, and her power becomes tied to surviving that violence. She eventually finds her way to the Morlocks. So when she first gets involved with Rusty, she already knows something about being outside the places that are supposed to keep people safe. She helps him when Freedom Force is after him. That’s worth remembering when talking about her as part of a couple, because she enters his story making a decision of her own. She sees somebody in trouble and uses what she can do to get him out of it. Her field also gives her a particular place among the Morlocks. Masque can’t just reach through it and change her face. She has protection from a form of control that other people around him don’t have, but that doesn’t mean her life is comfortable or that she feels connected to everyone else. A power can keep someone from being physically hurt and still leave them with a lot of problems. Sally’s early appearances spend time on both sides of that, especially once she has people she actually wants to let close to her.